Two Charged with Theft of Batteries from UK Broadband Street Cabinets
Last year we reported that the Kent Police had arrested four people in connection with the theft of batteries from “telecoms boxes” (i.e. street cabinets used by broadband providers), cables and other equipment (here), which caused some areas to lose internet connectivity. Two people have now been charged with 40 offences – Levi Backett (38) and a 15-year-old boy.
Just to recap. Officers from Kent Police’s Rural Task Force originally traced a vehicle suspected to be linked to the thefts around the South East to a location near Gillingham on Monday 7th October 2024. The investigation ultimately recovered more than 100 batteries, along with a lot of cables, the vehicle itself, a trailer, a vehicle engine and several heavy power tools.
The criminals targeted roadside cabinets between 24th September and 4th October last year in Canterbury, Herne Bay, West Malling, Eynsford in Dartford and Claygate in Surrey. The total value of the missing equipment was placed at £18,750. But in the end Levi Backett was charged with 23 counts of theft and the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with 17 theft offences on the same day (Kent Online). Both appeared yesterday before the Medway Magistrates’ Court.
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Network operators, such as Openreach and Virgin Media, sometimes put batteries in street cabinets. Each one can cost around £500 and they usually kick-in during power outages. But unfortunately such equipment, along with valuable copper telecoms cables, is often targeted by criminal gangs. However, the perpetrators of such crimes don’t always get away with it, particularly as such equipment is often forensically tagged and can be traced (here).
Sadly, the perpetrators of such crimes never have any regard for the harm they cause to locals, some of which are dependent upon related services for vital emergency and health contacts.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Good, throw the book at them.
And I used to think that thefts would stop once BT stop using copper for broadband
We’ll have to wait until that time comes.
Maybe ‘they’ will move onto stealing EV batteries
Well if they move on to EV batteries at least there’s a good chance they’ll electrocute themselves. 800V DC arc flash is no joke.
While it is possible to steal EV batteries. The massive weight, complexity and difficulty of that process (not to mention obstacles to resale of such batteries) means it’s usually just easier for thieves to steal the whole car.
Take their mobile phones away from them… see how long they last without the Internet.
£500 battery? you would think there would be some chip ID/serial locking capabilities in these, like apple batteries & parts.
The chip/serial on a battery would be solely in the battery management system (BMS). The lithium cells are the valuable part that can be reused, so they could just remove the BMS. It would also add complexity for the network operator when installing/replacing equipment.
Serial numbers work for Apple when the it’s very hard to separate the chip enforcing it from the valuable material. That’s not the case for lithium batteries where they’re made up of chunky lithium cells.
Big Dave it is not the volts that hurt you, it is the amps that do that.
Does anyone have any idea what people could rasonably do with these batteries?
Where I live the street cabinets that might have these, the doors are commonly open
Sell them to the scrap yard, they are lead batteries
I think that name says it all…. (It you know, you know )
Am I right in thinking the PON fibre networks won’t have this sort of infrastructure generally?
The P in PON is Passive.
why are they so expensive?